Writer/Producer Paul Monash Typed Manuscript Archive of Journals from Expatriate Days in Paris, 1948-1951
Paris: 1948-1951. Writer/Producer Paul Monash Typed Manuscript Archive of Journals from Expatriate Days in Paris, 1948-1951--Material Likely Used for 1955 Novel "Hellbound (Passion and Violence in Europe)" plus Avon Publishing Contract for "Paris Story" from 1952
Archive of 86 original typed manuscript pages plus 10-page signed book contract. Collection has the appearance of having been well-traveled, especially many of the typescript pages. Much edge wear and soiling yet all readable with no loss of content noticed. Fair condition.
Writer/producer Paul Monash (1917-2003), the son of silent film actress Rhoda Melrose, was born in New York on June 14, 1917. Although he was more interested in writing the Great American Novel, he wrote scripts for the early days of television, including the pilot for 'The Untouchables', which he also produced, and the hit soap Peyton Place (1964), which starred Ryan O'Neal and Mia Farrow.
Monash spent parts of four years from 1948-1951 bumming around Europe and Paris dreaming up his Great American Novel and writing diary content sporadically. This archive came with a signed 1952 Avon Publishing Co. Inc. contract for a book with the working title "Paris Story" with a final draft due February 1, 1953. Avon was known for low-brow romance and historical romance novels with bodice-ripping lurid covers--not exactly Monash's dream of great literature but still paid bills. He received an advance of $1750. We find no record that "Paris Story" was ever published. Monash would publish with Avon in 1955 "Hellbound (Passion and Violence in Europe)" which was later re-published under the title "Unholy Lover (Back Streets of Europe). We are including a copy of "Hellbound" which, upon reading excerpts, seems to have no relationship to the journals in this archive.
It is this cataloger's conjecture that these manuscript pages served as samples for the Avon project. The manuscript material ranges from flowing descriptive text of Paris and its' citizens to a lot of sex. It was not uncommon for Monash to have several flings within a period of days. In one instance, Monash abruptly leaves his date in a restaurant upon spotting a more attractive liaison.
" The whores are stationed along the Boulevard Montparnasse; they patrol little areas, pacing around as if they are in invisible cages. I see one walking briskly into the lighted area around the Coupule. I stop her. She seems pretty, slim. We bargain for a while, and I try to be charming. I explain that I want someone to sleep with me more for company than for sex. She sees the point. It is twelve-thirty; she will come to me in an hour and spend the night for two thousand francs. We go to a hotel and I borrow a book to read. Instead I write a letter to Nelson Gidding, datelined a whorehouse in Paris, and then I stretch out on the bed in my underwear and try to sleep. is about ten to one. I say to myself that if she returns before half-past one that will show that she likes me. Knocks at the door at about ten after one. I try to make everything seem unprofessional. I even get over my fear of V.D. The second time I give her an orgasm."
The collection also contains two short-story drafts, both titled "Casualty Build-up". The common thread between the two is the protagonist Eugene Kramer and World War 2 otherwise the stories are very different. One set of journal pages is titled, "Journal of a trip to Europe with cigarettes, camera and Candy" dated May 24, 1948. The collection dated August 22, 1949, is titled, "American to England--God's Gift Arrives to Depart."
One tightly typed manuscript contains wonderful and vivid descriptions and commentary of post-war France. " It was raining when I got there, and I dashed into the Cathedral, right into one of those ceremonies designed to heal the incurable, to prove that the Church can arrest natural law. It was a Thursday but there were over two hundred people in the Cathedral, most of them old and poor, with faces eroded by effort, ravines cutting their cheeks, big hard hands. A priest was chanting; his rich vestments were in eloquent contrast to the congregation he held what looked from a distance like a silver microphone, but it wasn't. I passed up to the front of the Cathedral, sitting just behind the invalids, the incurable." This essay goes on with much detail on politics, literature, and religion (The Jewish problem) but little about food, drink or accommodations.
After Monash's expatriate fling and television work, he graduated to films and scripts for classics such as Carrie (1976) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). In addition, he scripted the television movie All Quiet on the Western Front (1979), which won a Golden Globe Award for the best television film of 1980. Monash produced Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid along with Friends of Eddie Coyle among others.
At times, reading these journal entries felt voyeuristic--private thoughts, not intended for publication. But then I came across this self-aware statement from Monash: "There are several alternatives in keeping a journal: someone may read it (bad), you might lose it somewhere (probably bad), you might never lose it (worse), you might read it sometime (embarrassing), you might forget all about it (why not?). But one persists, I persist, because writers keep journals, even Robert Louis Stevenson kept one, so there!" The collection offers unpublished insights into a young American writer in Paris in formative post-war years; a writer who would go on to great accomplishments in Hollywood.
In 2000, the Writers' Guild of America gave him a lifetime achievement award. Accepting the award, he lamented: "I have not written the Great American Novel. It is in its first draft." He died in Los Angeles January 14, 2003, aged 85. Content from IMDb biography and Los Angeles Times obituary.
UCLA holds the papers of Paul Monash but clearly, not all. Item #2473
Price: $1,000.00